


Sirius Black Toodles Around #12 Grimmauld Place and Processes Trauma

by zephyr42



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Other, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Sad Sirius Black, Sirius Black Being an Idiot, Sirius Black has a good heart but it contains a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 23:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13258734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephyr42/pseuds/zephyr42
Summary: See title.





	Sirius Black Toodles Around #12 Grimmauld Place and Processes Trauma

Sulking was one of Sirius’s favorite pastimes. He’d spent a significant portion of every day in Azkaban turning it into an art form, and it was a relaxing way to switch things up from pacing furiously and blank apathy, which took up the rest of the time. His schedule had often appeared thus:

 

  * 8:00 Morning wake-up kiss*
  * 8:15 Drift in and out of consciousness until blank apathy can be achieved and you can stomach what passes for gruel in this place
  * 9:30 Sulk and think of how Peter should be here instead of you
  * 11:00 Pace furiously and think of how Peter should be here instead of you
  * 1:00 Afternoon stale bread and midday kiss
  * 2:00 Blank apathy
  * 4:00 Sulk until you can pace in self-righteous anger
  * 8:00 Sulk yourself to sleep
  * 10:00 Goodnight kiss
  * 10:15 Black out until morning



 

_ *Not that he was actually being given the dementor’s kiss three times a day, but it felt roughly equivalent to receiving mocking smooching sounds from bullies in the presence of one’s crush. Only the bullies were dementors and the smooching sounds were them passing by your cell with shuddering breaths that knocked your wind out with fear. It was if they were squeezing his lungs to see if his despair was ripe enough to harvest. It wasn’t the most fun he’d ever had being bullied, especially when the dementors didn’t even stop to listen to the gasping bursts of curses he hurled their way. _

 

He often spent the evening plotting his escape and cursing dementors, but doing that was better than drifting through the constant state of emptiness and despair he’d stayed in for the first year of Azkaban. Being angry required energy and a will to live, and he ultimately found that it relaxed him. Sulking was nice, though. He could just curl up in the corner and shake and feel sad, which is really sounds more pitiful than it was. Letting himself feel bad was cathartic. He’d been fighting for so long and in such a sustained battle, he hadn’t been able to mourn his friends or simply let the emotions pass through him. The madness came as it willed, and he let it take over with some relief. It felt like penance for surviving. It was what he deserved. But after the first several bouts, he learned that he needed the energy to maintain his sanity. Or if not maintain his sanity, focus on killing Peter. It was as close to sane as he got. Once he’d managed to turn into his animagus form, it had become easier to divert the madness into chasing his own tail and barking at whatever he pleased.

 

But now that he was, more or less, free and staring at the peeling walls of his childhood bedroom, he found it difficult to sink into his usual routine. For one, the crushing despair was gone. There was still a measure of anger, but it was tinged with frustration, which was utterly new. He could  _ do _ something about frustration. Throwing things was his favorite. In Azkaban he hadn’t had anything to throw, but here… here there were cabinets full of curiosities he could break and repair endlessly. Sometimes he just broke things without bothering to repair them, but he knew that while the cabinets were immense, the curiosities were finite and he didn’t want to run out of them. Besides, Harry might like to see some of them. The heirloom candlesticks fashioned from raven skulls especially, even though they made a satisfying crash as they crumbled against the brick wall of the basement.

 

The other strange thing he hadn’t had in awhile was that he was… well, Sirius was  _ bored _ . After a week or two, the novelty of breaking his mother’s things had worn off and he started to feel foolish. It was so childish, and after being out of the picture for the last ten years, shouldn’t he be putting himself to use to benefit the Order? Besides, what if Harry ever decided to take him up on his offer to live here? Sirius was sure his godson would take one look at the foyer and run back to the Dursley’s cozy house Little Whinging, but if he put in some elbow grease, maybe he could make a sort of apartment in one or two rooms where Harry would feel, if not at home, vaguely comfortable. He’d just leave the entryway for later and try to figure out a way to bypass it entirely for visitors.

 

Later, he’d do it later.

 

He began by chucking all the most offending dark magic kitsch into a bottomless garbage bin he enchanted for the very purpose. It had been a good exercise for him, and purposeful way to get acquainted with his wand again. Plus, he got to set fire in the bin and infuriate Kreacher, which was always a bonus. There were moments when he’d been afraid that the wand would spark uselessly, or worse, not recognize him at all. Remus had returned it to him just after he’d arrived in London. Somehow, his friend had obtained it (he muttered something about having a friend of a friend of a friend who was high up in magical law enforcement) and met him at the doorstep with a basket of biscuits, some fresh tea, and the wand.

 

Sirius had been making do with one of the family wands, a thick short piece that resembled nothing so much as a miniature club and responded to every spell begrudgingly and gave him a case of heartburn for hours after. He found the rejection comforting. Good to know his family still hated him as much as he hated them back. At the sight of his old wand, unaged and untouched since the night of Lily and James’s murder, Sirius felt his heart swell and break again. It was good to have the wand, back, though. Black briarwood, 9 ½”, with a dragon heartstring core. It felt like a weapon rather than a tool, but he felt better armed, even in his own ancestral home. Every time he raised it, he felt a little more alive, a little more like his old self. The self who fought tooth and nail against injustice and cruelty instead of shuddering uncontrollably in a cell.

 

When the two men stood on the doorstep of #12, Grimmauld Place, Sirius’s hand refused to reach out to grasp the doorknob. The thought of returning to the home he’d escaped from decades before repulsed him, and it took a full ten minutes of arguing with Lupin to open the door. He wanted to stay on the move, stay defensive, make himself harder to find. Not to return to the first place pureblood wizards associated with the name Black. There had been a handful of times since Azkaban when the madness threatened to pay him a visit, and that had been one of them. If not for the very real and grounding experience of being cursed out once again by his mother and his shins be beaten with an umbrella by Kreacher, Sirius was certain he would have never made it past the threshold. It was a familiar homecoming, though, and it was a reality he knew how to face. He was twenty years (give or take) older than he had been since last he last slammed that door on his mother’s shriek. Now he got to do it every day, with every door in the house! There was a certain satisfaction in it now. He’d outlived them all, and now the house was  _ his  _ and he could move the portrait into the basement if he pleased. In theory. He’d figure out that unsticking charm someday. Once the novelty of her angry swearing wore off and he covered her with thick,  _ muffliato’d _ curtains, he found the house was a shade more pleasant than he had anticipated.

 

There was no chance of calming or organizing the chaos of the house, so Sirius settled for navigating it as it came. He didn’t have to make it a home, he reminded himself, just a base of operations and a small place for Harry. When Dumbledore approached him about using the space for a headquarters, not only was he at a loss for good reason to say no, he’d felt that the least he could do to say yes. Harry would have his room. A place, Sirius told himself, that his godson could make it his own. It would be a place where Harry would never have to hide or run to the Weasley’s for safety. Sirius had learned from Molly Weasley somewhat of Harry’s living conditions, but the voice in his mind still whispered that  _ a madman isn’t fit to make a guardian for anyone, let alone The Boy Who Lived _ . But, as Remus had been quick to point out, Harry still had years of school and it would take time to get things right. Sirius repeated these things to himself as he steeled himself to face the next several weeks of confinement within the walls.

 

First things first: light. The house was cold and damp despite the heat of summer, but Sirius knew the good some sunlight could do. Not too much, mind, but the curtains needed airing anyway. The dust hung thick in the folds of the green velvet cloth, and he began to wonder if some redecorating might be in order. He could see red drapes and posters on the wall, a cozy space for Harry to study during the summer. No more snake motifs. He’d get  _ stags _ . But he was getting ahead of himself again.

 

That would have to come later, though.

 

He began the de-dustifying process by telling Kreacher to (in not so many words) get lost for the day and starting up the phonogram with an old Hobgoblins record. He took a deep breath and stood back, wishing a firm farewell to the shadows that filled the room. With as much dramatic emphasis as he could summon (which was a lot), he drew the curtains apart with a sweep of his wand. It cut the air like a knife, and Sirius felt his mood lift. Sunlight flooded the room. Unfortunately, so did the swarm of doxies.  _ Fuck _ . The moment of what was almost cheeriness was gone. With more speed than he had in years, Sirius fled the room, closing the door hastily behind him. The doxies pummeled the closed door, their shrieks piercing the air as their claws scratched the hell off the finish. He took a moment to gather himself and shake off the adrenaline before taking action.

 

“ _ KREACHER _ .”

 

* _ CRACK* _

 

The house elf appeared at his side, arms crossed on his gaunt chest and eyes on the floor. “Yes, Young Master? Kreacher thought he was to… ah... to make himself scarce so Young Master could prepare the room for the other blood traitors.” The house elf’s voice was the creak of every treacherous stair and door frame that prevented Sirius from making his getaway as a child. His beady eyes had taken on aspects of Sirius’s mother, shrewd and piercing and with thinly-veiled threats just below the surface.

 

“Don’t worry,” Sirius replied. “I won’t let you touch my godson’s room. I do, however, need doxycide. You’ve done a brilliant job letting this place crumble. Normally I’d be thrilled.”

 

The house elf huffed reproachfully. “Kreacher is afraid that there is no”—he wrinkled his nose—”doxycide in Kreacher’s Mistress’s house. She hated it.” He practically spat the words out.

 

Then Sirius remembered. “Ahh, yes, now I think I recall. She preferred to have them butchered, didn’t she?” She would call in the exterminators and they would leave scant minutes laters with the small bodies in canvas bags, the blood soaking through the outer layers. Most pest controllers would immobilize the fairies and extract or sell the venom, releasing them back into whatever wild abandoned ruin lay nearby their facility. He let out the breath, willing the memories to fade. “You’re dismissed.”

 

“The blood traitor has no right to dismiss the most faithful servant of House of Black.” Kreacher’s baleful stare earned him a sharp look.

 

“I told you to  _ fuck off _ .”

 

* _ CRACK* _

 

And he was alone again.

 

“Did you remember to bring it?”

 

“Of course, Sirius.” Lupin passed one of the bottles full of the paralyzing agent and began to roll up his sleeves. “I brought several. Surely your mother has more than one set of curtains?”

 

Sirius guffawed, and both men smiled at each other.

 

“I’ve missed your laugh, Sirius.”

 

“Such sentimentality.” He was still unaccustomed to warmth. It was as if one of his emotional socks had been turned backward for years and he finally had the chance to fix the wrinkle. Adjusting to normality (such as it was) was harder than he’d anticipated. He let loose a spray of the liquid into the air experimentally. His lips twitched into a smile. “We really ought to get to work.” Sirius twisted the nozzle on the bottle, backing away and spraying a stream on his friend’s left arm.

 

Remus gave a wounded cry of surprise which turned into a laugh. He shook his arm as it went numb. “Are you mad?”

 

“Not today, I’m not!”

 

In their youth, a fight would have ensued which would result in both of them immobilized on the floor, groaning in pain as their limbs came back to life. Now, they both chuckled at each other while Remus gave the other man a long-suffering look.

 

“I missed you too, Remus.” Sirius admitted.

 

“I know.” Remus lifted his useless arm and let it drop to his side, still laughing. “I know you did. Perhaps next time you could just say as much.”

 

“And what fun would that be?”

 

Remus sighed in response.

 

The two men managed to evict three colonies of doxies, but the ones in the lower floors were especially nasty, some of them twice the size of the ones expelled from Harry’s room. They would get Molly’s help with those. Even with Lupin’s expertise, it would require another person to help wrestle them into the bag while the other two kept the doxies at bay. She’d offered to help Sirius when she learned of the state of the house, but the last thing he wanted was to bother her with something trivial like a doxy infestation.

 

Remus left with the pests firmly contained in the enchanted bags. He knew how to get the venom and release the doxies safely, plus he said he could get a few galleons from the apothecary in Diagon Alley for the venom. Hard times had taught the two men very different skills.

 

The two surviving Marauders met several times a week for tea and it often turned into dinner, chatting idly and sometimes even laughing. For all that he’d been wryly and sardonically laughing his entire life, Sirius was remembering to feel joy when he laughed at jokes and memories again. Cracking a smile felt good, and remembering their years after Hogwarts began to feel less painful than it had before. Sirius was hungry for stories of the remaining Order of the Phoenix, and Remus would talk about Harry every chance he had.

The table felt too small for just the two of them, and they would often find themselves sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace of the drawing room while Remus went through the pile of dark magic kitsch Sirius had tried to break. Turns out it was a good way to find out what was cursed and what (probably) wasn’t. Remus had always had an eye for defense against the dark arts. 

 

“Why didn’t you ever go to auror training? McGonagall offered you a reference, didn’t she?”

 

Remus smiled wryly and shrugged with one shoulder. “Wouldn’t you know it, but the Ministry of Magic isn’t too keen to have werewolf aurors?”

 

“Well, maybe not an auror,” Sirius amended. “But what about a cursebreaker? They have specialists for that kind of thing, don’t they?”

 

“They do, but I’m not sure the job title matters as much as the werewolf part.” Remus scratched his chin as he often had when trying to hide just how much something bothered him. The bejeweled snake in front of him bit a jade figurine which drew its sword and began hacking away at the snake’s body. The jewels sparked and went dim, the snake’s body going slack. Remus sighed and pulled them apart again.

 

“Best out of three?”

 

Sirius gave a hum of agreement. “What did you do instead? Apart from a year at Hogwarts, I mean.”

 

The jade knight took a fighting stance and began to circle the snake.

 

“Odd jobs, mostly. There were places I could do short jobs from month to month without prompting any suspicion.” The vague answer was not enough to satisfy Sirius, and his friend knew it. “I did some work with cartography, actually.” The snake raised itself up on its coils and the knight began to level his blade, charging it with a bloodthirsty vengeance. “The Marauder’s Map was a good starting point. Turns out there are plenty of areas in rural Europe that need good maps done of their odder landmarks.”  The snake curled around the knight’s body, squeezing it until its hand hand dropped the sword and the jade figure crumbled. Remus shuddered and directed the snake back in its box, marking it with the symbol that indicated  _ probably dark magic—unsafe _ . “Never did anything quite as good without you and the others, though.”

 

Sirius repaired the knight and put it back in its bag, marking it  _ unsure—likely safe _ . He set them both aside and sealed off their respective containers, which held an afternoon’s worth of fiddling about and dousing the occasional fire. A few particularly fine pieces had been set aside to smuggle out under Lupin’s coat to sell.

 

“I should take off. I know Dumbledore will be expecting a report soon, so I should probably get that around.” Remus stood up and began to shrug on his coat. Sirius pulled himself up from the ground and dusted off his clothes. Debris and dust clung to him, and his back creaked from being kept inside for so long.

 

“You know I don’t hold it against you, but how much do you tell him about me?”

 

“The report’s on activity out in the country, actually. Not here.” The man’s smile barely reached his eyes.

 

“Remus.” Sirius grasped his friends arm gently. “It’s okay, I just want to know if… I just want to know.”

 

Lupin sighed. “I tell him about what we do and what you’ve done with the place, not your mood or what we discuss. He seems more interested in the state of the house, to be honest.”

 

Sirius snorted. “Sounds about right.” They both exchanged terse smiles of understanding. Sometimes being useful had to be enough. They walked to the door, footsteps muffled.

 

“See you soon, yeah?”

 

Sirius nodded in response, and the door gently clicked shut.


End file.
